About two years ago, when I first met my wife, I was smitten enough to assign her number a unique ringtone on my phone. So each time she called, the world would know it was she on the line. The irritatingly electronic trill would attempt a pathetic rendition of the Malayalam super hit 'Ende ellam ellam aleh' and my heart would go bumpity bump. Well, like I said, I was smitten.

Since then, I've married her, replaced the kitschy tone with a discreet vibrating alert and hate all kinds of intrusive ringtones—including polyphonic and master tones. But I am a minority.

Ringtones of all kinds have gained a life of their own and the outcome will impact contemporary Indian music significantly. My guess is it won't be pretty. Here's why.

To start with, it is going to be an awfully long time before Indians actually start paying for music downloads. At last count, there were 13 billion music tracks of all kinds that reside on P2P networks like Kaaza, eDonkey and Bittorrent—all of which can be had for free.

Intriguingly, however, Indians don't think twice before paying anywhere between Rs 3 and Rs 10 to download a ringtone. I find that funny because these are invariably 15-second clips that mimic popular film songs and item numbers—not whole downloads. If trends across the rest of Asia are a harbinger of things to come, I'm willing to bet by the end of this year, ringtones will generate more money than online music sales. And this is where the problem for music really starts.

Look at it this way. Given a choice between Kabban Mirza's 'Khuda Khair Kare' from Razia Sultan and Tata Young's 'Dhoom macha de' from the bike flick Dhoom, what would you much rather have on your phone? My guess is the latter will take precedence over the timelessness of Mirza's voice—whether or not you prefer the former. Whatever you do, there is no 15-second snip from 'Khuda Khair Kare' that can sound good on a cellular phone.

Even if it did on newer phones that have built-in MP3 players and other such assorted rubbish, it takes a whole lot more than 15 seconds to appreciate good music.

I say this on the back of what I see here in the US where I have been ensconced over the last week. As genres go, Hip Hop and Pop fi nd favor as ringtones. The New Yorker, a magazine I follow with biblical zeal, explains why. "Ringtones, it turns out, are inherently pop; musical expression distilled to one urgent, representative hook."

And don't forget, ringtones promise to be more lucrative than album music sales in this part of the world. The incentive, therefore, to create songs of the kind they did for Razia Sultan will diminish hugely.

To my mind, that is the only reason why music like 'Khuda Khair Kare' will eventually lose out. It doesn't have hardy enough DNA to make it in the new world. What a pity!

P.S: Just in case you're wondering, Ende ellam ellam aleh? means Aren't you my everything, aren't you?